I write about the Internet technologies and upstarts that are disrupting advertising and media faster than ever. I'm living this disruption, so I might as well write about it, too. I spent nine years as chief of BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau writing about the leading edge of technology and business, and I continue to do so for a variety of publications. Follow my posts here by clicking the "+ Follow" link under my name. You can also find me at my personal Web site RobHof.com, follow me on Twitter (robhof), Circle me on Google+, subscribe to me on Facebook, and email me (robert.hof@gmail.com).

Update, with more below:Yahoo just reported a 32-cent per share profit, or 23 cents on a GAAP basis, on slight revenue growth, to $1.35 billion, for its fourth quarter. Profits rose higher than Wall Street estimates, and while the revenue growth on an annual basis was the first in four years, it came in right at expectations. Display ad revenue was down, search was up. Shares are up more than 4% in early after-hours trading after falling a fraction in today’s trading, to $20.31.

Update 2, 2:20 p.m. Pacific:Now the shares are up only 1% in extended trading, as the earnings call proceeds. By the end, shares are up 1.5%, but later in the day, they were up 2.5% later. All in all, CEO Marissa Mayer told them what they wanted to hear: that Yahoo’s long side may be ending and that she has a plan–if not yet all the particulars–for how to get it growing again.

The one upside of running a company that every investor knows isn’t doing very well is that it’s hard to disappoint those investors. That’s Yahoo for the past several years.

But with shares up 30% since former longtime Google executive Mayer joined last July, investors will be watching more closely than usual how the Internet pioneer does in its fourth quarter, Mayer’s first full quarter as CEO. Even more, they’ll be looking to hear what Mayer may reveal about her plans for the coming year–and the list of their questions is long:

* How will Yahoo revive its core display-ad business? (Update: Start a “chain reaction” by getting better content and products, which will get more people, especially younger, more engaged, which will lead to more ad revenue.)

* What can it do to resurrect its search business given the clear failure of its search deal with Microsoft? (Update: Make it more personal, and search did see better-than-expected growth, but otherwise, TBD.)

* What can be done to catch up to Google, Facebook, and many others that all have a huge head start in addressing the tide of people shifting their attention from desktop to mobile devices? (Update: This implicitly was pretty much all she talked about.)

* How will Mayer get the shell-shocked troops at Yahoo fired up after they’ve lived through so many CEOs and strategy shifts in recent years? Or will she fire more of those who can’t get fired up? (Update: She says 95% of employees are now optimistic about Yahoo.)

* What additional operations will get dumped? In particular, will Mayer have any news about plans to sell off the company’s Yahoo Japan stake? (Update: No news here.)

We have a lot of work ahead of us but we’re seeing a lot of positive trends, Mayer begins. People are products are the keys, as she has said before. A survey says 95% of Yahoo’s are now confident in the company (OK, maybe that answers the “are they fired up” question.)

She thinks the new sales structure she put in place will pay off. There’s a particular focus on the top 1,000 advertisers.

Lots of talk about new content deals and products, which we’ve heard before. She says Yahoo is focused on profitability, looking for places to cut costs and watching spending more closely.

New CFO Ken Goldman comes on the financial details. He says Yahoo thinks it can improve its anemic revenue growth, eventually outpacing market growth. (We’ve heard that before, so it remains to be seen how investors will greet this new promise.)

The reason for lower display ad revenues is lower engagement by Yahoo users, particularly on Yahoo Mail, he says. So they’re working on how to improve engagement. You can read what Goldman is going over in Yahoo’s earnings slides.

Now for the outlook: Goldman says Yahoo is expecting revenues of $1.07 billion to $1.1 billion for the first quarter and $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion for the year.

Second half of the year should see more improvement than the first as new initiatives get underway.

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